


Birds of Different Feathers

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, Mentors, Pre-Canon, Treat, mentions of disordered eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 05:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15308715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Georgi is nervous when Yakov calls him into his office for a talk; he doesn't expect it to be about his diet.





	Birds of Different Feathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greygerbil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/gifts).



It was rarely a good thing to get called into Yakov's office without knowing the reason ahead of time. Georgi sat in the chair across from Yakov's desk, trying to look like he was completely calm and feeling like he was about to cry.

He'd done okay at his first competition of the season. Fourth place. It should have been higher – if he couldn't hack it at a small competition, that didn't bode well for the GP series. But Georgi was trying. Yakov knew that, right? This wasn't Yakov telling him that he wasn't doing well enough and he had to go find coaching somewhere else, right?

Yakov cleared his throat. "You're not in trouble. You can stop looking like I'm about to take your skates away."

"Okay." He relaxed a little. That was good. Yakov wouldn't tell him he wasn't in trouble if he was.

"Have you been eating properly?"

Georgi nodded. Maybe this was about his health? He was doing fine. In fact, the past few months, he'd been trying to eat better. It was hard, but he needed to skate better, so he could live with it.

"At the competition," Yakov said, a little slowly, "it sounded like you weren't. You aren't starving yourself, are you? Skipping meals?"

"Um." Well, he did sometimes. He knew he wasn't supposed to, but it was easier than eating small meals that left him feeling hungrier than before.

At the competition, when he'd gone to lunch with Yakov and Victor one day, he'd tried to stick to something small, claiming he wasn't hungry and didn't want to have too much before he skated. Victor had said, oh so innocently, that he hadn't eaten at breakfast, so surely he must be hungry by now? And then Yakov had made him order something bigger.

Georgi didn't get how Victor could eat so much and remain thin as a rail. Surely he couldn't eat like that all the time.

"I really wasn't hungry that day," he tried to protest.

"It's not about the one day," said Yakov. "There have been other times where you – you haven't been skating like yourself, lately. Your stamina isn't where it should be, or your jumps. Are you trying to lose weight? Did someone tell you to?"

It was true he'd been more sore after practice the past couple of months, but he'd also been working harder. Sometimes he did worse before he had a breakthrough and got much better. Surely it was just something like that. "Nobody told me," he said. Nobody had to. Everyone knew that skaters had to be lightweight to do their jumps, and that the judges liked thin, long-limbed builds. Like Victor's. He'd gotten a little tall lately, but he still had a tiny waist and high jumps. Georgi's jumps were fine, and they were almost the same height now, but he didn't look that much like Victor.

"Did you decide it on your own? You don't need to lose weight."

Georgi couldn't help a little laugh at that. Nobody had ever said _that_ before. It was always – a girl had thighs that were too thick, although Georgi secretly didn't care, or a guy was too stocky, or hints from judges and ballet teachers that maybe he'd look better in his performances if he was a couple kilos lighter. "Coach," he said, "I'm fine."

"I mean it," said Yakov. "Who told you? Did your dietician say something?"

"She didn't say anything. I – I told you, I'm fine." His dietician had seen his new weight earlier this week and kind of just nodded. If she was fine with it, then Yakov should be.

But he didn't look fine with it. He frowned, a harsh expression on his lined face. "I don't want you starving himself," he said, leaning forward over the desk. "Or dieting, or whatever it is that you think you're doing. You can't skate properly if you don't have the energy to do so. You're a teenager, your body is still growing – and you're working very hard in practice. I can tell. You have to give yourself enough food to make up for it. I know you need to be light enough for jumps, but you're nowhere near having to worry about that." He sighed. "What's going on? Is this about Vitya?"

Georgi swallowed. Yakov wasn't yelling, but he was disappointed, which was worse. "My dietician didn't say anything," he muttered because yes, it was about Victor.

Georgi liked Victor. He didn't _want_ to be jealous. But it was hard, when Victor was naturally pretty and talented and had an Olympic medal and scores Georgi couldn't touch.

He didn't get it. Victor hadn't been that far ahead of him at first – they'd even traded places on the podium in Juniors for a couple of years. And then something had happened. Victor had started setting world records, and then he'd moved to Seniors ahead of him, and then he'd gone to the Olympics. The media still hadn't stopped fawning over him. Which, he deserved it, he worked hard and he'd earned that medal, but....

"If she's telling you not to eat, you need a new one." Yakov sighed again and picked up a pen, rolled it around between his fingers. "You can't compare yourself to Vitya. I know you're competing, and it's hard when you have to share the same rink all the time, but you're different people."

"You mean he's _better_ and I shouldn't feel bad about not being him," Georgi burst out.

"I don't—" Yakov set the pen down and stood to come around his desk, dragging his chair with him so they were sitting next to each other. This was new. Nice, maybe? Friendlier. It was easier to meet Yakov's eyes like this. "No, you shouldn't feel bad about not being him. And yes, he's been very successful so far. That doesn't mean he's better than you."

"That's kind of the definition."

Yakov got a little twitch of a smile. "No, it's not. You can't compare yourself to him because you have a different build, and that's the way it is, you can't change it by not eating. And you have different strengths. Remember how long he had to work on his Lutz edge? And your triple axel is more reliable than his, and your spins are still better. You've seen the difference in your GOEs on them, surely."

"But I don't have a quad." Well, he kind of did have a quad toe loop. It just wasn't very reliable, so he didn't use it yet.

"You have time to work on it. You're only seventeen."

"But Vitya has one. He almost has _two_."

"What does that have to do with you? Does that keep you from having time to work on yours?"

Georgi opened his mouth, then closed it. Well. No. He did work on his, a lot, especially now that he was old enough that Yakov would let them practice quads more than when they were still in Juniors. It was getting better. He was hoping to be able to add it later this season and make up for some of the difference between his and Victor's difficulty.

"I... guess not?"

"And so?"

"I'll keep working on it?" He chewed on his lip for a moment. "I don't see what this has to do with the fact that Vitya's ahead of me." Or what this had to do with food. Wasn't that what they had started off with?

"That's the _point_." Yakov put a hand to his face. "What Vitya's doing has nothing to do with what you're working on and how to get your own level up. If Vitya was sitting in front of me right now, I wouldn't be telling him that he needs to start spinning like you, or like whoever else. It's one thing to use someone as inspiration, but everyone's weak points are different."

"Oh." Okay, that was – yeah, that was a funny image. Victor would hate being told to copy someone else. He always wanted to do something different. Maybe that was what Yakov meant. "So... how do I stop?"

"That's the tricky part." He dropped his hand. He looked more relaxed now than he had a minute ago. "I'm glad you have a competitive mindset. I wouldn't keep you as my student if you didn't want to improve. And I know it's difficult sometimes. I used to skate myself, remember. Got called 'stocky' a lot, or 'robust' when people felt generous. But you need to eat to skate. If you're not feeling well or practicing as well as you should be, your body is trying to _tell you something_. Stop being an idiot and listen to it."

Georgi laughed, feeling more relaxed himself. "I guess I do have better taste in music than Vitya." See, he did have something. Victor picked pretty things, but Georgi knew how to choose pieces with _real_ emotion and then paint his feelings on the ice. People did say nice things about that. He liked it when they called him artistic.

That got him a bit of a real smile. "I'd never trade your style in for Vitya's," he said. "You have a unique sense of artistry. You should use that to your full advantage."

"And my spins."

"See, there you go. And when you go to get lunch today...?"

Georgi went back to chewing on his lip. He didn't like going hungry. And Yakov had been a coach for a long time. If he was giving Georgi explicit instructions to eat more, maybe he was right. As long as it was still healthy, lots of vegetables and protein.

Victor never seemed to struggle with his diet. But Georgi didn't know what Yakov had to lecture Victor about. Maybe it didn't come so easy as it seemed for him, either. He did have bad days in practice, even if he always did well in competition.

He took a deep breath. "I won't leave hungry."

"Good." Yakov clapped him on the shoulder. "And if anyone starts telling you to lose weight when you haven't gained any, you look at them and say that it's none of their business, do you hear me? Or come tell me so I can yell at them for encouraging my students to eat poorly."

"Okay. I will." Probably not the second one. Yakov's angry yelling could get scary. Not a lot of people deserved that inflicted on them.

But he could be nice, too. Georgi put a hand to his chest, feeling so deeply relieved that it went all the way down his spine. So Yakov still believed in his potential. A lot, from the sound of it. That was nice to know.

"What did you think I was going to tell you? You were white as death when you came in."

"Um, well, it's wasn't – I knew you wouldn't, but I was thinking that I'm not as good as Vitya, so maybe...."

"Did you think I was going to throw you out?" Yakov shook his head. "You're one of my best students, and one of the best skaters in the country. Even if your scores aren't quite up there with Vitya's yet, why wouldn't I want to have two of my students on a podium? Or what if he got injured and couldn't compete?"

"I said I knew you wouldn't." He smiled. "I can't imagine training with anyone else anymore. And I know you probably have people banging down your door asking for coaching." So it meant something, that Yakov could have the pick of the skaters in the country, and he'd kept on picking him.

"Which is why we took on so many novices this year. But I don't have room for more Seniors with the talent keeping me busy now."

Talent like _him_ , Georgi thought as he went to lunch. He ate as much as he wanted, and it felt good to not be hungry, even if a small part of him protested all the food. But his coach had said he had to eat, so he ate, just as he'd been told. And he felt lighter on his feet than he had in weeks when he skated out on the ice afterward, ready to perfect that quad toe.


End file.
